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THE MARSHALSHIP 



S. A 



IN V 



BEING 

A REPLY TO CHARGES MADE BY MESSRS. ABBOTT, 

POOL, HEATON, DEWEESE, DOCKERY, JONES, 

LASH, AND COBB, 

SENATORS AND REPRESENTATIVES OF THE STATE. 

Seaton House, Washixgtox, D. C, 
Ai^'il 6, 1869. 
To the Hon. E. K. Hoae, 

Aiiovney General of the United States : 

Sir : I have before me a copy of a printed petition to the 
President or to yourself, Avhich was filed in your office, as I am 
informed, a few days ago. It is a pamphlet of seven pages, 
headed, " The United States Marshalship in Xorth Carolina," 
and demands my immediate removal from that office. It pur- 
ports to be signed by the Senators and Representatives, consti- 
tuting the entire delegation at present holding seats in the 
Congress of the United States from North Carolina ;'^ but in 
the absence of the written signatures of the persons thus de- 
scribed, and whose names are printed at its close, there is nothing 
on the face of the paper to warrant the assumption of its genu- 
ineness. My first thought, after perusing it, was that some of 
the names, at least, were appended to it without proper author- 
ity, and the grounds for this momentary suspicion Avill appear 
from the statement of facts I am about to make. 

I have assumed that this formidable petition is addressed to 
the President or to yourself; though the printed copy does not 
warrant that inference. Indeed, it seems to have been intended, 
like Dickens' Notes on America "for general circulatioh',^' and 
is inscribed " To " This indefiniteness of aim may 



liave been the result of calculatioiij with a view to quicken the 
sense of official obligation in the appointing power, by rallying 
])ublic opinion on the side of the petitioners ; or it may have 
proceeded from ignorance of the source of official patrouc^ge. 
At any rate it is singular that members of Congress, constituting 
an entire delegation, who are presumed to have easy access t«"> 
the President and the heads of Departments, should find it 
necessary to apply for the office of marshal for one of their 
friends through a long printed manifesto, with their names 
printed instead of signed, and addressed to nobody or to every- 
body. It is like — 

Uceau into tempest wrought, 
To waft a feather or to drown a fly. 

That you may fully understand the merits of this controversy 
it becomes necessary that I should say more of myself and of 
my past history, than modesty would readily sanction. In brief, 
then, I am a native of North Carolina, and, at the same time, 
a life-long opponent of slavery. I have spent my life in the 
investigation of the subject in its economical, moral, social, and 
political aspects, and have Avritten and published my thoughts, 
from time to time, since 1841. My views of slavery were not 
derived from nor have they been essentially modified by those 
of northern writers on the subject. On the morality of the 
system, my instinctive feelings were seconded by the writings of 
Jefferson and other southern statesmen of the revolutionary 
era, who were quite as out-spoken as their cotemporaries of 
the !North., These irrepressible sentiments of repugnance to 
slavery, although expressed in measured terms, rendered it im- 
practicable for me to succeed in North Carolina, and I came 
here, Avhere there was a guarantee of personal security, if there 
was a want of sympathy in my views. In the long and fierce 
controversy which followed, it became known to the people of 
North Carolina that I took the side of freedom against slavery, 
and my old friend Mr. Holden, through the columns of the 
Standard, which was the organ of the so-called Democratic 
party, soon made the climate too warm for me to dwell in. This 
state of things lasted till the close of the war, when I returned 
to the State as United States marshal. Those of the people 
who were strangers to me, looked coldly on me, thinking me 
their enemy ; but they soon found that while I was inflexible 
in my devotion to the Union and to freedom, I was the friend 
of every man who was ready to obey the laws. I did not ask 
of them a hypocritical profession of concurrence in my views, 
but only that they should demean themselves as good citizens, 



' - and aid in upholding the good order of society ; and this the 
great mass of the people of all parties have done. I scarcely 
■ know an exception among the respectable classes, and I accord- 
ingly have uniformly insisted that all law-abiding citizens should 
be included in a general amnesty and restoration of rights. My 
controversy with Mr. Holden has not been a personal one, grow- 
ing out of his criticisms while his paper was the organ of the 
slave-holders, but political, because he has pursued a course 
which has tended to alienate the whites and the blacks from 
each other, and to drive the former into opposition to Republi- 
can principles. The old Whig leaders and many "Democrats'^ 
were willing, two years ago, to co-operate in the work of recon- 
struction on the basis laid down by Congress ; but Mr. Holden 
seemed to dread lest the Republican party would become too 
large, and embrace in it too much of the culture and character 
of the State. He accordingly set about denouncing all as trai- 
tors whom he could not reckon among his followers, and threat- 
ened them with the confiscation of their property. To the 
negroes he made vague promises of a distribution of the lands 
of their former masters ; and thus he drove the great body of 
respectable men from the Republican party, and, as far as was 
practicable, sowed the seeds of distrust between the races. 

The first allegation against me is, that in the spring election 
of 1868, for the ratification of the new constitution, and the 
choice of Governor, Legislature, State officers, and ^lembers of 
Congress, my name was placed at the head of a " bolting ticket,' ' 
in opposition to the regular nominees of what the petitioners are 
pleased to style the " regular Republican ticket.'' I have two 
replies to make to this charge. In the first place, I had no 
hand whatever in bringing my name before the public as a can- 
didate for the office of Governor ; on the contrary, I earnestly 
protested against it, as something futile and ridiculous, and 1 
was on a visit to this city when I first saw, with chagrin, in a 
Xorth Carolina newspaper, that a ticket had been formed with 
my name at its head. But this feeling of mortification at the 
ridiculous position in which I was placed by my friends had in 
it no element of respect for what your petitioners style the 
" regular Republican ticket." 

And this brings me to my second ground of defence against 
the charge of heading the "bolting ticket." There was no 
healthy, honest, liberal, decent Republican party in the State. 
I endeavored to aid in the formation of one. I began my efforts 
in 1865. It was my desire to form a party composed of first, 
the old anti-slavery men of the State, chiefly Friends or Qua- 



kers, and Moravians ; secondly, the numerous and highly re- 
spectable classes, who had either been true to the Union in heart, 
if not always in deed, or who had opposed secession and rebellion 
before the war, and who gladly welcomed peace and a restora- 
tion of the Union. I was anxious to add to these as many law- 
abiding citizens who liad been secessionists, as could be persuaded 
to acquiesce in the new order of things. To this end, I addressed 
the people through the press, and the leaders of the people in 
conversation. As far back as September, 1865, and within a 
few days after I reached North Carolina, I wrote a letter, which 
was published in the Grccnsborough Patriot^ in which I appealed 
to the good sense of the people of all parties, to begin the work 
of reconstruction ])y sweeping away from the statute books the 
oppressive distinctions made in the laws between Avhite men 
and black men. I urged the repeal of the statutes which ex- 
cluded black men from testifying in the courts in cases involving 
the rights of white men ; and I insisted that the right of suffrage 
should be made to depend on education, intelligence, and char- 
acter ; not on the color of the skin. Mr. Holden, who was then 
the editor and proprietor of the Ealeigh Standard^ not only did 
not second these propositions of reform, but he opposed them. 
Bartholomew F. Moore, Esq., of Ealeigh, an able and ven- 
erable lawyer, with others of his profession, favored the idea of 
according the equal right to testify in the courts to black men ; 
and for that reason Mr. Holden was opposed to his election to 
the Legislature. The Standard lauded a speech made by the 
Hon. Kenneth Eaynor, against this right of testifying, and Mr. 
Moore was defeated. Not one of the present partizans of Mr. 
Holden, of native birth, so far as I know, then favored the right 
of the negroes to testify against white men ; and if his northern 
coadjutors were on the liberal side at that time, they were, with 
a few exceptions, conveniently silent and acquiescent under the 
then existing wrongs of the black man . 

In August, 1866, my conduct was sharply criticised in the 
Sentinel newspaper, for having signed the call for the September 
Eepublican Convention at Philadelphia. You will readily 
remember that patriotic gathering of the people, for its influence 
in checking the demoralization of" the party caused by the defec- 
tion of Mr. Johnson, I was then, as now, marshal of North 
Carolina, but I did not on tliat, or any other account, hesitate to 
sign the call for the convention ; and through friends I procured 
a nomination as delegate from the same handful of original anti- 
slavery men, who, eighteen months later, cast their votes for me 
for the office of Governor. I attended the convention, and I 



found there neither Mr. Holden, nor any member of his State 
ticket, nor any one of the Senators and Representatives who are 
now petitioning to have me removed from office, on account of 
my opposition to the Holden ticket, except Mr. Jones. I will 
do ]\lr. Holden the justice to say that he expressed sympathy 
with the leading object of the conv^entiou, which was to rally 
and restore order to the party. But he was not ready to risk 
his popularity or influence with the white race, by taking part 
in a convention supposed to be favorable to the extension of 
suffrage to the blacks. Mr. Pool and Mr. Dockery were then 
still in the land of darkness and shadows, and would have been 
shocked at the idea of negroes voting. Mr. Alexander H. 
Jones was present, and coincided entirely with me in the course 
I pursued. Messrs. Abbott and Heaton w^ere then citizens of 
North Carolina, but for wise reasons they kept aloof from the 
Republican revolt against a President who had nearly three 
years to serve. They doubtless sympathized in the movement, 
but they left it to humbler men to give it efficient aid. No 
delegate went to Philadelphia from Newbern, the seat of Mr. 
Heaton's Bank, nor from Wilmington, and parts adjacent, where 
Mr. Abbott and his friends now hold undisputed sway. As of 
old, one went to his farm, and another to his merchandise, and 
the cause of freedom and Union, was left to be cared for by an 
over-ruling Providence. 

The attack on me in the Sentinel newspaper to which I have 
referred, afforded me another favorable opportunity to speak to 
the people in behalf of Republican principles, and the rights of 
black men. I addressed a long letter to the editor of the paper, 
mainly in advocacy of the extension of suffrage to colored men. 
They cleclined to publish it, except iji part. The editor of the 
Standard courteously published the entire letter, but dissented 
from the views ])resented in it. The old anti-slavery men, who 
had read the National Era, the Neic York Tribune, and other 
journals of similar character, sympathised with me, but no man 
with political aspirations could be induced to allude to the sub- 
ject except in whimpers. M'r. Abbott and his northern friends, 
and Mr. Heaton and his northern friends, who had taken up 
their abode in the South, were as silent as the grave ; or, at 
least, if they desired the enfranchisement of black men, the 
fact was kept out of the newspapers. 

In the winter of 1866-67, Messrs. Holden, Pool, and others 
of their friends, visited Washington as a " delegation of loyal 
men.'^ They drew up a bill to establish a provisional govern- 
ment for the State, and to provide for reconstruction. It con- 



tained no feature looking to the enfranchi.seinent of black men. 
Suftrage was to be confined to tlie loyal whites. A test oath was 
framed which excluded all whites who could not swear that at 
the end of one hundred days iroiu the issuing of Mr. Lincoln^s 
amnesty proclamation, of December, 1863, they were in favor 
of restoring the Union. It Avas not until they ibund, from in- 
terviews with Mr. Stevens and others, in the two Houses of 
Congress, that negro suffrage was a foregone conclusion, that 
they could be induced to acquiesce in that measure. Some of 
their friends, finding that negro sulirage was inevital>le, went 
home in disgust. 

In March, ]867, Congress passed the first of the series of 
" reconstruction" acts, by which universal colored suffrage was 
provided for. Immediately Mr. Holden and Mr. Pool discov- 
ered that there was no right so sacred as that of black men to 
the elective franchise. The former, who liad defeated Mr. 
Moore's pretensions to the Legislature, because, as a lawyer and 
a just man, he insisted upon the equal right of negroes to testify 
in courts of justice, now that Congress had settled the matter, 
employed the Standard newspaper to denounce all men w^ho ad- 
hered to his former sen timent^^ as traitors and conspirators against 
the peace of the country. The enactment of the reconstruction 
acts was the signal for a scrub-race for office among demagogues — 
white, black, native, non-native, rebel and Union, so-called 
Whoever made the loudest professions of devotion to black 
men\s rights, and vowed the most slavish obedience to the will 
of the majority in Congress, was the soundest ])atriot. liife-long 
loyalty to the Union, and advocacy of impartial freedom, tiiough 
accompanied by proscription and exile, inflicted by these Iden- 
tical new-born champions of black men's rights, went for noth- 
ing. And, on the other hand, a man might be steeped in trea- 
son to the crown of his head ; he might have been the truculent 
pro-slavery and pro- secession editor — the organ of what passed 
for Democracy in the South before the war, or he might have 
been the military Jeffreys during the war, consigning scores of 
men to bloody graves for the oiFence of deserting the armies of 
the Confederacy ; and these sins were at once condoned by a 
clamorous profession of devotion to tlie will of Congress. 

Indeed, so completely have past " records" been efHiced among 
the new'-fledged '^ Rejnibllcans" of North Carolina, that to have 
been a life-long opi)onent of slavery and secession is becoming, 
as it Avas In the days of slavery, a cause of proscription. The 
pardoned rebels w^ho now rei)resent North Carolina in Congress, 
and their Northern-born colleagues, seem to have entered into a 



conspiracy to have every native and original Republican re- 
moved from office. My case is not a singular one. Within a 
week j)ast, the President, imposed upon by these pretenders to 
Republicanism, nominated an unpardoned rebel as assessor of 
internal revenue in the sixth district, in place of Mr. H. H. 
1 lelper, who is not only a Republican of fifteen or twenty years' 
standing, but who was disabled in the service of the Union 
during the rebellion as a soldier, and wdio was expelled from 
Newbern in 1862 as an Abolitionist, by the military governor. 
Mr. 1. G. Lash, one of the signers to the paper calling for my 
removal, could tell Senators, if summoned, something about the 
character and position of Mr. ^y. T. Henderson, the nominee in 
[)lace of Mr. Hel})er. Did ^Ir. Lash recommend him ? Or if 
he did not, why does he not protest against the appointment ? I 
call on Mr. Lash, as an honest man, to speak. He was my 
candidate against Mr. Holden for the office of Governor. I 
nominated him, in the Register^ because, as I understood, he 
could take the test oath. He has the reputation of having been 
at all times loyal, and it is now incumbent on him to speak for 
loyal men, instead of joining the conspiracy against them. I 
had been led to believe that he was the tower of strength to the 
loyal men of his section ; but his tame acquiescence in the dic- 
tation of Governor Holden and the northern members compels 
the belief that it was the loyal atmosphere of Salem and For- 
syth whicli sustained him, instead of receiving strength from 
him. I thought I had some claims upon the good will of Mr. 
Lash, but I fear that my opposition to his pet scheme of legiti- 
mating the rebel State and county bonds touched him in his 
most tender jjoint, and more than off-setted the honestly-bestowed 
praise of his Unionism. 

The mandate has gone forth, also, from the conspirators, that 
Professor Hedrick must be removed from his office of examiner 
in the Patent Office, His offence, Jike Mr. Helper's and my 
own, is, that he will not bo^sv down and worship the man who 
had him expelled from the University of North Carolina in 
1856, for venturing to say that he desired the election of John 
C. Fremont. For this offence the trustees, stimulated and men- 
aced by Mr. Holden in the Standaixl, held a meeting, and dis- 
missed Mr. Hedrick from his position as a professor. He has 
not changed his views of slavery, nor his party relations, since 
1856. Mr. Holden, who then liad the power through the slave- 
holding interest, to drive Mi-. Hedrick from North Carolina, 
now demands of a Republican Administration, through the half 
j'cbel delegation in Congress, that he be expelled from the Patent 




Office. Mr. Holcleii's name may or may nut be among the pe- 
titioners for the dismissal of the professor, but his inflexible will 
is the main spring of the movement, while the " entire delega- 
tion in Congress" are but his instruments. The same is true of 
the removal of Mr. Helper. It is a light thing to atone for 
crimes against the Union and against humanity, but whoever 
expects forgiveness for sins against Governor Holden ^vithout 
works meet for rei)entance, will wake up to a heavy reckoning 
when he least expects it. The successor proposed by the " dele- 
gation/^ or a part of it, to Professor Hedrick, is a rebel, who 
did what a man of his years and capacity could for the " Con- 
federate" cause. His name is Doherty. When the war broke 
out he was engaged in teaching school at Newbern. I remem- 
ber to have seen, in a copy oi' tlie Newbern Progress newspaper, 
which, like the town, was captured from the rebels, an advertise- 
ment of this Mr. Doherty, oflering his services as a manufac- 
turer of gunpowder for the Confederates. He also claimed to 
be the inventor, or at any rate he oflered to manufacture, conical 
bullets for smooth-bore rifles, wnth which to blow out the brains 
of the Yankee soldiers. 

The delegation have been too modest, in their printed appli- 
cation for my removal, to designate my successor, but the fact 
has become widely known that they have unanimously — or per- 
haps with the exception of Mr. Abbott who has a northern 
friend to provide for — endorsed the pretensions of Mr. Samuel T. 
Carrow, the sheritt* of Beaufort county. Until recently I had 
labored under the mistake of supposing that Mr. Carrow had 
been at all times loyal ; and it was for this reateon that I substi- 
tuted his name on the electoral ticket for one on the ^' regular" 
ticket, which had less claims to confldence. But it seems I did 
my rival more than justice ; and you will find, as I found, too 
late, that i\Ir. Carrow is a pardoned rebel — i)ardoned by an act 
of the Fortieth Congress. I know nothing of his oflences, except 
that in his judgment they needed the pardoning grace of Con- 
gress to qualify him for the office of United States marshal. It 
may be, that as a truly loyal man, his horror of the southern re- 
bellion is so great that he feels it incumbent on every man born 
on southern soil to crave pardon. But whatever the motive, 
I can only say that he has been pardoued, so that he can take 
the office, if appointed to it, and coniirmed by the Senate, with- 
out taking the test oath of July, 18(32, which test is reserved for 
those whose loyality is above suspicion. 

I have stated that I had nothing to do with the formation of 
the ticket which bore my name at its head, except to protest 



against being placed on it. But if the facts were otherwise, I 
should not hesitate to vindicate it as being quite as Kepublican 
in character as that headed by the name of Mr. Holden. Begin- 
ning with the names at tlie heads of the two tickets, Mr. Holden's 
and my own, I can without egotism on my part or injustice to 
him, state that while the establishment of universal liberty has 
been the dream of my life, the great subject of my thoughts, 
and the main topic on which I have written for the press for 
more than a quarter of a century, Mr. H. with equal pertinacity 
and with far greater pecuniary success, labored to extend and 
perpetuate slavery. It was by this sign he conquered all before 
him in Xorth Carolina, became the leading editor and publisher 
in the State, and the man of widest influence ; so that his boast 
in 1859, that he could "kill and make alive," that he could 
create and destroy men, politically, was not an idle or empty 
one. It might have been wise in him to withhold the vaunting 
declaration, but it was true. By his unscrupulous yet skillful use 
of the terrorism which slavery everywhere inspired in its devo- 
tees, as well as in its enemies, he could make a great man of 
very small materials, and he could destroy the best reputation 
for " soundness on the slavery question'^ with equal ease. It was 
only Avhen Mr. Holden attempted to rebuke the excesses of his 
party because it failed to nominate him for Governor, and thereby 
threw doubts upon the feasibility of the extremest and hastiest 
measures looking to the interests of slavery, that he lost caste. 
He in vain endeavored to regain his forfeited position as the 
champion of slavery ; and after many fruitless efforts, such as 
signing the ordinance of secession, and pledging " the last dollar 
and the last man" in North Carolina to the cause, he at length 
and by degrees abandoned the so-called Democracy, and began 
to look about him for materials out of which to build another 
party. Having lost the confidence, and incurred the bitter hos- 
tility of the great majority of the white people, nothing but the 
enfranchisement of the colored race, to which he had been so 
much opposed, could ever have lifted him out of the limbo in 
wdiich he found himself after ceasing to be the champion of 
slavery and secession. It thus often happens in life that the 
events we most dread and deprecate are those which bring us 
the greatest blessings ; and he who in 1865 defeated honest Mr. 
Moore, for advocating the right of negroes to testify in courts of 
justice, has, by his facility in turning and adapting himself to 
circumstances, and by his subtle ways as a party manager, en- 
throned himself in power over the State- of North Carolina for 
four years, by negro votes. But if Mr. Holden can change his 



10 

principles lie cannot change his nature, and the inflated pride 
which ten years ago burst forth in the exclamation that he could 
^' kill and make alive," by acting as the vicegerent of the Moloch 
of slavery, now tempts him to sport v»'ith the tremendous moral 
and political forces set in motion by the overthrow of the rebel- 
lion and the destruction of slavery, and as if it were to turn 
them back upon the source whence they issued — the hearts of 
the loyal men whose fidelity in the field, in the council, by every 
fireside, and under all circumstances, saved the Union from 
destruction. If Mr. Plolden can work this miracle ; if he can 
so deceive and bend to his will the leaders of the Republican 
party as to induce them to abandon and proscribe all that was 
loyal to the Union, and all that was true to impartial freedom 
in the South, in the days of slavery, and take to their embrace 
the most truculent and overbearing champions of slavery and 
secession, he will deserve the honors due to a necromancer. But 
I will not harbor the suspicion. Reason, justice, and common 
sense all revolt against it, and only the most debased partizans, 
whose moral code is summed up in the maxim that '^ might 
makes right," will, for a moment, hear to the suggestion that 
the man who turned away the heart of North Carolina from the 
Union, and who infused into the veins of her people the virus of 
pro-slavery madness, can now give law to the Republican party 
in Washington, and through that party again proscribe and 
ostracize the handful of true men Avhose hearts even in the dark- 
est hours beat responsive to the claims of liberty and Union. 

As it regards the other names on the two tickets I will not 
stop to run the parallel. Two or three northern men on the 
Holden ticket were probably Republicans before or during the 
war ; but the natives were for the most part active rebels, at 
least in the beginning of the contest. The same is in the main 
true of the names on the " bolting ticket ;" most of them were 
more or less compromised in the rebellion, while not more than 
one or two were active abettors. In point of respectability and 
intelligence they all stand in the first rank of society, while it is 
safe to say that some of their successful competitors do not. I 
doubt if the signers to the petition for my removal would have 
the hardihood to say that the judges elected on the Holden 
ticket are, as a whole, the equals in attainments and character of 
those on the opposing ticket. 

I have thus far omitted to allude to the fact that the indict- 
ment filed against me by the delegation is less strong than it 
might have been, in that it passes over my first and greatest offence. 
I am arraigned for having opposed the party in April, 1868, 



11 

whereas it v.as in September, 1867, that I denounced the party, 
in the moment of its organization. I denounced it in the 
Raleigh Register newspaper, as a fraud upon the people, and a 
disgrace to the Republican name ; and it was at that date that I 
was formally read out of the *' Republican party '^ by Mr. Hol- 
den, who signed the secession ordinance and pledged " the last 
dollar and the last man'' in the State to make it good. Why 
did the delegation, in their petition for my removal, omit to put 
this capital offence of mine down against me? Was the omis- 
sion intentional, and designed to save the feelings of Mr. John 
Pool ? Was it in consequence of the fact that Mr. Pool was 
himself the leader of the revolt against the Holden organization? 
AYas it that the writer, Mr. Heaton, was aware that ]\lr. Pool 
was the author of the Address to the People, whose object was 
the disruption of the so-called Republican party ? I doubt not 
the majority of the delegation charitably concluded that the 
humiliation of Mr. Pool was sufficiently great, without compel- 
ling him to stultify himself publicly by name. 

I have no personal grounds of complaint against Messrs. 
Abbott and Heaton, since I have no claims on their good will. 
I understand that they formerly belonged to the class of mod- 
erate Whig Republicans, and that their sudden awakening on 
the subject of down-trodden humanity Avas caused by the pas- 
sage of the act of Congress conferring universal negro suffi^age. 
In like manner I had nothing to expect from Mr. Dockery, 
late of the Confederate army, nor of JNIr. Cobb. Of Colonel De- 
weese and Colonel Jones, I had a right to expect better things ; 
since the former was indebted to me, in part, as the indorser of 
Governor Holden's recommendation for the office of register in 
bankruptcy ; while Colonel Jones, as well as Mr. Holden, was 
under obligations to me for having, by permission of Mr. Mc- 
Pherson, designated them as the publishers of the laws. But 
these worthies doubtless belong to the class of men who 
cherish '^ a lively sense of obligation for favors to be received." 
Of Mr. Lash I have already spoken. 

The delegation, in their petition, quote from a printed letter 
addressed by me in May last, to ^Ir. Sumner. I am gratified 
that they did so, as it may induce you to look into it. They say 
it was treated with general contempt by members of Congress, 
which fact may account for the facility with which they slipped 
into their snug berths, through the rents of a violated Constitu- 
tion. But if my letter was overlooked by Congressmen, I can 
assure you that it was not thus treated by the people of ]S[orth 
Carolina ; and I doubt if one respectable, and at the same time 



12 

disinterested, lawyer can be found in the State, who does not 
assent to every material proposition therein maintained. I ad- 
mit that the questions discussed have become obsolete, but tliey 
were not so when the letter appeared, and I have nothing to 
take back. "What I proposed in the letter was not that the new 
constitution should be thrown aside, but that a fair and legal 
election should be held in conformity with its provisions. I 
voted for the constitution because it established impartial suffrage, 
and was to be the end of military rule ; but it is in many respects 
defective, and I may say a bungling and complicated affair, un- 
suitable in several of its features to the circumstances of the 
people. 

In this connection I will add, that I voted for a majority of 
the electors on the Grant and Colfax ticket, after striking off the 
names of others which were for various reasons, distasteful to 
me. And since the petitioners say that they are not aware that 
I did anything in the late Presidential contest, to aid the Repub- 
lican cause, I will inform them that I induced some at least, to 
vote for an expurgated ticket, wdio, like myself, could not accept 
the wliole of it. 

The delegation having printed their petition for my removal, 
in order to circulate it among Congressmen and the people before 
it sliall have been acted upon by yourself and the President, I 
take the liberty of doing likewise, in order that my defence may 
be as widely diffused as their allegations against me. 

The issue has been made by the Senators and Representatives 
from North Carolina, whether Professor Hedrick, Mr. Helper, 
and myself, old anti-slavery men and Republicans, are to be 
dismissed from office at the request of rebels and conspirators 
with rebels, because we refused to vote for Governor Holden, 
who Avas the great leader of the slavery party in the State, who 
voted for the ordinance of secession, and who pledged ^' the last 
dollar and the last man'' in the State to the Confederate cause. 
For myself, and without consulting with or desiring to involve 
others, I accept the issue. If I am to be turned adrift by such 
influences and for such causes, I stand ready to go. But I do 
injustice to you, to the President, and to the Senate, by the bare 
suggestion that you will be controlled by such influences. 
I have the honor to be, with high respect, 

Daniel R. Goodloe, 
V. S. Marshal for District of North Carolina. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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